I managed to get my word count yesterday. I can’t believe I only need 24,000 words to finish the minimum word count. The book always ends up longer, but when I first begin, it always seems like I’ll never get there.
Little one will be here any second, so got to run. Hope you all have an excitingly fun day!
So I alternated between taking pictures of my granddaughter playing on the splashpad and the dragonflies that were eating my bad bugs.
I saw a red one too, but it looked like he didn’t like all the competition for bugs and flew on past. But I could have told him there are TONS of bugs he could eat! Don’t leave. Please.
I managed to get my 2,000 word count yesterday on Highland Wolf Christmas, and proof 3 chapters of Red Wolf Christmas. So I’m working on more proofing today and maybe will get a little of my word count on the other book. It depends if I can think of something, or if I want to just get this other book proofed and turned back in. But I’m already 2,000 words behind on the other book. sigh.
All right, I’m back to proofing. Have a glorious day!!!
I love dragonflies. They eat bad flying insects. Between them, butterflies, bumblebees and hummingbirds in the garden, my granddaughter and I were thoroughly entertained.
I often don’t see a hummingbird at rest, but my neighbor has a tree next to my fence where they will sit. I tried to get a shot of them, but not sure if they came out.
So I finally got a pass on my portrait and uploaded the next one. In the meantime, I have the third one completed, and I’m working on a fur course.
I ended up getting 500 words on Tangling with the Wolf–the novella on my non-writing day while little one was here. Then I was working on Wolff Bros 2 edits based on my beta readers’ critiques. I hope to get that done today and then get the rest of my word count for today.
We had wild thunderstorms twice yesterday. We weren’t supposed to have any rain. But I will take any that we can get. Little one usually sings, “Rain, rain, go away.” And I tell her, “Oh, no, we need the rain!” I was telling her that all the little animals need the rain, and she finally was singing, “Rain, rain, come again.” I’ve got to train her right. lol
We have a better chance of rain today when we weren’t supposed to. I’m glad. It’s helping to cool things off a bit. Maybe I can get some more weeding done.
Okay, I’m off to finish these edits and then get back to writing.
I was at the kids’ house yesterday having fun, taking pictures of the wildlife–a dragonfly, a red ladybug, a Cuban anole, a skipper butterfly on a sunflower and guess what I found? A gray ladybug. And yes, they’re really a good little ladybug!
Yesterday morning it was colder than I thought, but not cold enough to wear a full sweater, so I put on one I never wear that has three-quarter length sleeves. It’s a pretty shade of purple, but I have nothing to wear with it so I haven’t worn it for years and years. Usually I’ll put something like that on, take it off and wear something else. But I didn’t. Which isn’t like me at all.
So when I went to the post office, a UPS truck was parked across several parking spaces and I couldn’t get close. It was about to rain and I had a big box to ship for an item I had bought that wouldn’t work, so I parked by a pet supply shop that’s new but I never go into. I go to a family-run one or Walmart for pet supplies because the big store is too expensive.
After I dropped off the box, I headed back to my car, and the thought popped in my mind that the pet store might have a better pooper scooper than I picked up at Walmart. I didn’t find any, but then I saw collars and when I took the dogs in for their shots last week, I realized Max’s collar was way too tiny. He’d had it since he was a puppy. So despite normally picking up a collar at Walmart, that probably would have been less expensive, I found the least expensive one I could at the pet store and took it to the checkout.
The lady at the checkout counter tells me she loves my sweater. I figured she meant the pretty shade of purple. “The dragonflies,” she said.
They’re rhinestone and I hadn’t even noticed them when I put the sweater on. They’re more subdued. Like I said, it had been years since I’d worn it. “Oh, yes, I love dragonflies,” I said. (And purple!)
The woman was about thirty and she said, “My sister just died a couple of days ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” The comment was so out of the blue, I was kind of taken aback.
“She loved dragonflies. When my little boy saw a dragonfly yesterday, he said that his aunt was visiting them.”
“Oh.” And then it dawned on me. All the strange coincidences: buying new merchandise that wouldn’t work, deciding to take it back to the store before it poured rain, wearing a sweater I haven’t worn in years and years, being thwarted by the UPS truck so I had to park next to the new pet store I never thought I’d go into. Not finding the item I was thinking about buying there, but remembering another I needed to get, though I normally wouldn’t have bought it there. And then meeting the lady at the checkout counter whose sister had so recently died, who loved dragonflies and her little nephew saying he knew she was sending a message to them that she was with them whenever they saw one .
Rhinestones are actually crystal clear and these are very small.
And here I am with a sweater covered in them. Coincidence? Or was I guided to cheer up the clerk a little, a message to her sister that she was still there for her? The lady said she was telling her son when she got home that a lady wearing a dragonfly sweater came to see her, which would undoubtedly cheer her son too.
Coincidence? Or something more?
Okay, I’ve been bouncing my granddaughter on my knee, trying to write this, now off to feed her breakfast.
You never know when or how you might brighten someone’s day, but what a great way to start a day!
When I captured the shot of the flame skimmer dragonfly, the sunlight was hitting it just right so that it made him look like he was etched in gold. The zinnia is a candy stripe, and it’s the only one that has shown up from the package of seeds I planted so far. It’s soooo cute. And the gold zinnia is just as pretty.
So yesterday, I took my granddaughter around the whole neighborhood, and holding my hand, she actually ran part of the way. This is good, exercise and wearing out, yes! And we spent 2 hours at the pool. She has always been afraid of getting her face wet, and she’s been afraid of the water, so it’s like taking itty bitty steps. She let me take her into the deeper water and with my hands under her tummy, she kicks and paddles a little. But this time, she also was in the shallow area and had her hands on the bottom of the pool and was allowing her body to float. So she’s getting more confidence. Hopefully, by the end of the summer, she will be doing better. And she napped for 2 1/2 hours. Yay!
I have so many different colors of zinnia, I took her by each of them and asked her, “What color?”
“Green.”
“Noooooo, pink.”
“Yeah, pink.”
“What’s that?”
“Green.”
“Noooo, pink.”
“Yeah, pink.”
“What’s that?”
“Yellow.”
“Yes! Yellow.”
“What’s that?”
“Green.”
“Noooo, pink.”
“Yeah, pink.”
She got the yellows right. She began to say pink on all the pinks. She said the reds after I showed her the first was red.
Okay, today is MY day, which means getting that other promo blog done and getting back to word count!
I need to take the dogs out. I need to take the garbage out. But the storms are raging this morning. Lightning right overhead. Strong winds. Pouring rain. Dangerous.
A couple of pictures of dragonflies I managed to take on the walk my daughter and I took on Friday. I want to go back and shoot some more, but I need to get going on the novella. I finally think I’ve started it–300 words. Now I just need to get 2,000 words a day. But my granddaughter is coming, so not happening today.
Thunderheads when I lived in Crawford with the open fields
Off to get the rest of the garbage together, and see if I can make a mad dash outside. The lightning is still really bad. I love storms as long as they don’t do any damage.
Common Dragonfly and Monarch Butterfly laying eggs on milkweed.
We had wild thunderstorms all day yesterday and they’re continuing today. My word count is rising higher and higher, and I still haven’t figured out the end. Maybe it will still come to me. Hope springs eternal.
Added a bokeh texture to the dragonfly picture I took. In this one, the background had been just white. In the cougar one, I bought the pictures from stock sites, and then with the model, did a lot of work on her. The Wolf Pack one was a lovely gift to me from Nicole of Rainy Day Artwork. I bought the cover for the book that matches the artwork. Love her work.
I was finally, finally sleeping this morning at 2:45 am when some idiot drunks called seven times. Couldn’t get back to sleep because I started to think about what I needed to do concerning my wolf story, and that was the end of sleep. I wrote some. Then I came in to blog and my dogs think that at 4:50, it’s time to get up. Nope, go back to sleep and appreciate that you can!
